The Mecca Agreement, a trilateral defense framework of Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia with a collective defense provision, marks a shift in the Middle Eastern security architecture with ramifications for South Asia’s security. India’s strategic establishment, however, has so far dismissed it as a trivial aggregation of countries with disjointed geopolitical objectives.
Jerusalem and New Delhi must adopt a long-term strategic, tactical and intelligence road map to counter it.
Although it may appear ambiguous on collective defense and incoherent in its objectives, the agreement is likely to invite more Islamic countries in the future, intensify the arms race in the Middle East, strengthen Pakistan’s military, financial and diplomatic heft, and unleash Saudi Arabia and Turkey as nuclear actors. Additionally, it is likely to strengthen jihadist proxies from the Middle East to South Asia and, if Bangladesh joins, it can pose internal security challenges in India’s hinterland and the restive North East. Hence, Jerusalem and New Delhi must adopt a long-term strategic, tactical and intelligence road map to counter it.
Countering the Mecca Agreement requires pressuring each member by crafting a wider network of counter-alliances. The Hexagon of Alliances network, proposed by Israel, can be one of the most crucial frameworks to check the Mecca alliance. The proposed network includes Israel, India, Greece, and Cyprus as key pillars, along with Arab and African states such as the United Arab Emirates and Somaliland. Greece and Cyprus can provide an effective bulwark against Turkey’s expansionism in the Mediterranean. Somaliland, situated alongside the Gulf of Aden just south of the Bab el-Mandeb, is crucial to control chokepoints. Such alliances need formalization, with a proper secretariat, defense, technological, economic, and cultural cooperation, military interoperability, and think tank and people-to-people exchanges.
In the Middle East, Jerusalem and New Delhi can leverage the India-Israel-United States-United Arab Emirates (I2U2) to tighten the noose. Focused on investments and economic and technological cooperation, the I2U2 needs intelligence and defense frameworks to become an effective bulwark against the emerging Sunni axis.
Further, India and Israel can strengthen their strategic footprint in the South Caucasus. Armenia is the best bet for New Delhi and Jerusalem, despite its military weakness. Though Yerevan, realizing its limited options and lack of friends, now accommodates Turkish and Azerbaijani diktats through its Crossroads of Peace project and the Trump Route for International Peace (TRIPP), neither Turkey nor Azerbaijan have abandoned their expansionism. With Armenia blocking Turkey’s pan-Central Asia ambitions against the backdrop of closer Turkey-Pakistan security ties, Armenia’s functional independence is an Indian interest.
Strengthening Balochistan, Pashtuns, and an array of anti-Pakistan non-state actors can keep Pakistan’s generals hemmed in, addressing internal disruptions.
In South Asia, strengthening Balochistan, Pashtuns, and an array of anti-Pakistan non-state actors can keep Pakistan’s generals hemmed in, addressing internal disruptions. Lately, the Baloch insurgents, who call their struggle a freedom movement rooted in secular and democratic ideals, have dealt a blow to Pakistan’s army. Free Baloch now control a significant part of the Balochistan province. Pakistan’s defense establishment is searching for ways to contain the Baloch insurgency, lest it ends up carving out another state from Pakistan.
Pakistan’s vulnerability is India and Israel’s gain. Americans can also add value, as a liberated Balochistan undercuts the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the key pillar of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. China, which imports a major share of its crude oil through the Indian Ocean, aims to reduce its vulnerabilities at the Malacca chokepoints through Balochistan’s Gwadar project. If Washington succeeds in disrupting Pakistani control of Gwadar, it disrupts Beijing’s strategic calculus.
